High-Stakes Online Poker: Gus Hansen Now Down $10.4 Million Lifetime On Full Tilt Poker

Another Bad Week Online Has Dane Further Into The Abyss

Gus Hansen lost $114,498 (according to HighstakesDB) on Thursday, which brings his lifetime losses on Full Tilt Poker to an incredible $10.4 million.

The Dane has lost about $3.4 million more than the next worst in the tracking history. Hansen is officially the biggest loser ever online, but Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté has been rumored to have lost far more back when he was playing under an unknown screen name.

Full Tilt opened in 2004, and Hansen’s official data goes back to 2007.

Around summer 2009, Hansen was sitting at about $1.7 million in profits on the site, but then went on a downswing that lasted over a year. He was down about $10 million. However, in fall 2010, Hansen began a massive heater. By spring 2011, he had erased about $6 million of those losses. But when Black Friday struck in April and Full Tilt shut down that summer, Hansen had to put his upswing on hold for months and months. The site relaunched in November 2012 under new ownership, and Hansen was reunited with his account.

So far in 2013, he has lost $4,003,528, about $1.2 million more than Phil Ivey, who despite being the biggest winner in online poker history, has lost $2.8 million this year.

Comments

I've seen headlines about Hansen and his losses for quite a while now. My own experience with finally checking out FT only recently and interest in online poker in general led me to sign up here so I could post for this.

So yes, only recently within the past few months did I finally check out the (free) action at FT (I'm in the US), having put it off all this time for several years or so now. Having already seen certain extremely "questionable" patterns in various well known online poker options, all except one being "free" ones (although virtual goods is actually big $ and big business in itself wherever any paid options apply - just ask the guy who got a 2 year jail sentence over Zynga chips in 2011 - so ultimately the incentives are the same, just on a different scale), I was naturally hoping for the best with FT. And what did I find? Loved the software interface, felt it was the best I'd ever seen overall - so far so good. But...

The card action I experienced on FT was what I would describe as the absolute "stupidest," most absurdly non-credible action I had ever experienced. I was very surprised. It was far worse than what I had experienced elsewhere in terms of that stuff. Despite how much I liked the interface, I was left with no desire whatsoever to even bother getting a chip reload or to play there again, and I haven't

So...although it was only the "free" option on FT for me, as I read these headlines about Hansen and his incredible losses, I'm not surprised at all.

As a side note, I have spent time on the other biggest two names as well since then, PS, and the action there started out seeming as if it would be ok and "credible," but has turned out to be only somewhat better, and really more or less the same overall. Sad. It turns out that both of them are even worse than what so many of us were observing and talking about on a famous poker app on FB which was definitely in business to make $ selling virtual chips.

This whole experience has been very disappointing, and lead me to be concerned about the industry in the US as it unfolds and finally starts rolling. It is my hope that attention will be squarely paid to regulating and examining the software itself, and that we get a solid clean industry if possible.

Somewhere along the line I came across a video I would like to share. Very ironically, it was embedded on a poker related site and the author was calling attention to it as being nonsense. The only thing the author succeeded in doing for me, however, was pointing me to a video I found to be rather valuable and which resonated with my own experiences I was having with online poker. The video is on a Youtube channel called "Robers dee" and is titled "Online Poker Is A Scam." I highly recommend watching it and listening to what the guy says, and it's only around 9 minutes. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3tv-1rBJeY. When I watched this video, even though he was talking about real $ online poker elsewhere, it was as if he might as well have been describing the free-but-with-paid-options FB app I was regularly playing on at the time. I found it to be very compelling indeed.

Well, you have certainly raised one of the most troubling and concerning of the issues involved in online poker, Jill, and thanks for doing so. Hopefully these kinds of things will be addressed as the industry begins to unfold here, but sadly it doesn't really seem to be now.

Number 1: If you've only played playmoney poker you havent played poker. Im assuming we are talking some kind of Texas Hold'em. I came to this site cause i googled Robers Dee. In the video he also says hes been playing for a number of years... but if you read a little about him hes actually a voice actor. Not a poker pro. I find that there is a great amount of bad beats on pokerstars. But hey if we all are subjected to the same amount of badbeats then pish tosh. About the Robers Dee video it's a group of statements that he claims comes from his pokertracker but he doesnt use screendumps?? he mantions that an underpair will beat an overpair about 47% of the time and says that an underpair has 2 outs to beat an overpair. well first an underpair has more than 2 outs insome cases they can even split the pot. Second he fails to mention under which circumstances the said underpair beats the overpair: Pre,flop,tur,river .... it matters. Of course if its preeflop and over a sample of 2895 hands (Believe that was the number given... why not 93... 95 nice rounded number 2895 nicely rounded doesnt seem too fake), It would be an alarming discrepancy .. in fact so alarming i believe the whole payer pool would have complained about it........ All that said I do Google the issue of rigging and cheating because I sometimes feel it happens way to much. But then on the other hand when im the one Badbeating the other I dont think about it as much as if I had been on the receiving end!! how bout you??

P.S. And the one time I have tried a real $ site, one where I had $ sitting for a very long time which I hadn't even put there myself and which I had never used for that before - yes, frankly it did seem as if some of the players could see my hole cards. It's not one of the most famous sites, but people familiar with the industry would be familiar with it. Given the nature of this one and relative # of tables and players, frankly there may be good reason to think that might be going on there, and like I said it sure seem like it.

Hmmm, let me see. This guy is one of the biggest losers in all of poker as shown by his initial play online and his current play under more regulated terms. Then he all of a sudden goes on a 6mil heater right before Black Friday on Full Tilt where know owners, reps, and players were proven to be able to see hole cards using 'god' accounts. Funny coincidence don't you think?

This guy is one of the worst degenrate poker players of all time and a complete douche bag as well. Why anyone would still use the words 'poker pro' with his name is laughable. He is as much of a poker pro as Guy Laliberte was, but at least he knew what he was an admitted playing those stakes for pure fun. If Gus is a 'poker pro', then I am a professional golfer with my 3 handicap down at the local golf club, lol.

Your reply holds no water at all, MaverickAZ, as VoiceOfReason has already acknowledged that Hansen won the titles - all of which plus $1 would get him a cup of coffee and a very big bankruptcy filing by themselves. VoiceOfReason has correctly addressed the practical realities and bottom line of the situation. Moreover, on the infinitesimally smaller scale of ordinary folks like myself, it's actually consistent with my own experiences with some of the more "non-credible" and absurd action I have encountered in online poker so far: i.e., a system may prop you up a bit and let you win a few, but then hammer you with an incredulous avalanche of absurdly unbelievable bad beats that are almost even predictable after a while, and similar such action. So in this case, big whoop that Hansen was "allowed" to have some big wins before, as they've been taken back and more in spades, pardon the pun. Also see my replies to Jill up above if you haven't yet, and watch the video I posted a url to.

Ralph, Gus's 'overall' success with tournament and online poker is a very very negative one. Who cares if he won a few events when he has spent over a million dollars in buyins and lost 10 million dollars online. Eventually any reasonable player will cash and win a few if you play enough of them. That's the point and I guess you don't get that. If I played in as many tourneys as he did earlier on and as much online, I would be +ev over him without question! No, I don't play much anymore these days due to a growing family and great employment opporuntity a few years ago. However, I played in a mere 3 WSOP events, final tabled one for 3rd, played in only 8 somewhat major tourneys and cashed in 3. So yes, my cash rate is a hell of a lot higher than his.

Maybe Gus madea ton of money early in some real soft cash games with little other experience at the table with him, but overall he is a donk. Sorry. just calling it like I see it.

Full Tilt money just goes around and around.Poor Gus was used . It's very hard to lose 12 million or even harder to get 12 million and impossible to get it from a bank to online sites after 911. Not a nice picture of regulation and online poker.

Don't forget, that Hansen plays LIVE cash games too, and those aren't reported anywhere.

His style of play early on was different than old school. He was playing cards that most would muck, but he would hit 2 pair, 3 of a kind or straight. That only last for awhile, as folks figure out what you play, and adjust.

There's a reason the real pros muck those type of cards.. in the long run, they're losers against good players.

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